I applied for the Villains, but won't really help because I haven't preordered.

Accepted. And yeah, unless we get three more pre-orders, this is a complete non-starter of a guild (of course, that doesn't mean we can't create one after launch it just means BW won't create it for us before launch).

Where did you see that? I've read and re-read all of the e-mails I received for the testing. None mentioned anything about any day. Just, you've been selected, go here and download the client. Thats all I got. When I run the .exe the play button is grayed out, but still no info on my gaming time.

Where did you see that? I've read and re-read all of the e-mails I received for the testing. None mentioned anything about any day. Just, you've been selected, go here and download the client. Thats all I got. When I run the .exe the play button is grayed out, but still no info on my gaming time.

You should have received an e-mail circa Wednesday (at least that's when I got mine) entitled "Testing Details for Star Wars: The Old Republic". In there is a line that says "Your test begins:" in orange text and then a date in white text below that.

Where did you see that? I've read and re-read all of the e-mails I received for the testing. None mentioned anything about any day. Just, you've been selected, go here and download the client. Thats all I got. When I run the .exe the play button is grayed out, but still no info on my gaming time.

At the top of the mail, it says "Saturday, November 26 at 10:00AM CST"

Oh, go to your account and verify it in case you havent - as soon as you log in, you will be asked to some new secret questions and one more thing as far as I remember, and then I recieved the mail immediatly afterwards.

Other forums also have tremendous difficulty holding a guild past the initial month or two past release, btw. Gamers With Jobs is a larger forum than GT or OO and has the same problem.

You aint kidding.

I played Rift with GWJ for a few months. A few of us stayed the whole time but it felt like the few of us were constantly helping people get ready for end game who subsequently quit about the time they were almost ready for end game.... And then it gradually petered out. I have yet to ever start out with a GG, OO, GT, GWJ forum guild that actually made it to end game content. Every game i've started them with the guild dies about about the time a few folks are ready for end game.

Can easily start one figuring you'll just be leveling up together then merge with others to form an end game capable guild though, nothing wrong with that that i see.

still can't change UI size. come on already, bioware, this is standard fare for years. 1920x1080 and half is the fucking UI still. god.

Much of my lone weekend test's feedback was on that sort of UI thing. All I can confirm is that they were asked about stuff like that, and the UI not being repositionable, including inventory windows, at NY Comic-Con's Q&A panel and the community rep seemed to say they likely wouldn't have such features "at launch."

Now I remember it took Turbine some time to introduce features like scale-able UI in LOTRO, but that was years ago, as you say. Unless their dev team has lived in a cave, Bioware oughta know that sort of things generally "in by launch" in most newer MMOs. I realize they have bigger things to worry about, but often if you get the small things right from the start, imho, you make a good first impression and give gamers less to fret/complain about. Rather than "My UI's too tiny, and why can't I put my HUD components where I want them, and why is this inventory window fixed and why can't I resize said window" and so forth.

Though hey, if I know "that's how it's gonna be," I'll stop focusing on it and look at other things when I login Saturday. =============My European Steam bud Topper played for quite a few hours on the European server today as a Jedi Knight. He indicated he got to at least L12 or so, and he seemed to really enjoy it (it's his first testing opp). Had to wait in a login que for quite some time but apparently it was pretty lag-free once he got in.

Since NDA's lifted, testers can share videos and stuff. If you're not in the test (and haven't been in past tests; if you have, this will probably be stuff ya saw before) and wanna see how things are shaping up, this fan site called "Beta Bounty" is sharing beta walkthroughs from this weekend.

This Darth Hater forum post links to all their YouTube videos so far:

Beta Bounty - Constant Youtube Coverage (from playing in this weekend's stress test)http://www.darthhater.com/forums/forum-home/general-discussion/23812-beta-bounty-constant-youtube-coverage*Some of these videos are looooooooong (like 20 minutes); they are narrated -- in case you find that annoying *I suggest doing a "Shift/click" with the links so they open up the YouTube flick in a new browser window.*These are all 720HD vids.======================I was watching their vid on the Options Menus, and this one thing jumped out at me cause I didn't know it was there -- the "Ability Action Queue Window" time setting...*You have to scroll down in the options menu to see it, so it's easy to miss it (bottom there)

*The tooltip explains what the numbers mean. ".5" is the default. He indicates it's to adjust to latency issues.

I'd think maybe another idea is if you don't like the que system, set it to zero; if you like it and want to que up an additional thing or two regularly, maybe try higher settings.

There's an interesting option checkbox (I think in Social) where if your name is mentioned in guild chat, or a tell, you get a notification sound (but not if you already got a notification in the last 30 seconds).

Although I like the "Add to Friends List" buttons at the end of group instance's rewards, there's an option to turn that off. You can also disable movies and tutorials, which might be handy on repeat playthroughs of the game later.===========

Finally have a moment to sit down with the beta, but it's downloading a couple of last minute updates. I thought I already had this, but oh well. As long as it doesn't take another 6 hours I guess I can't complain... too much anyway.

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Crap. I got in no problem, but it doesn't look my computer could handle the graphics. My computer is old and not optimized for gaming, but it was able to handle rift and dc universe pretty well. Unfortunately this was borderline unplayable. I'll look into upgrading my computer, but unless I can do it for really cheap I'll have to pass.

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Finally have a moment to sit down with the beta, but it's downloading a couple of last minute updates. I thought I already had this, but oh well. As long as it doesn't take another 6 hours I guess I can't complain... too much anyway.

I was able to get in yesterday and probably played 6 hours or so. Most of my experience was really smooth. Load times were very fast, no lag, etc. There is a bug where when you exit the game, it hangs and you have to ALT-F4 to get out. Another time after about a 2-hr session, the game wouldn't recognize mouse clicks and I had to restart. Otherwise, it has been fine.

I rolled up a smuggler and got him to level 10. So far, the questing has bee good with some interesting lightside/darkside choices along the way. There is a bit of time wasted running from point a to point b and some of the interior locations are enormous (i.e. more running) but it has been very good so far.

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I only do two things; kick ass and chew bubblegum. Right now, I'm all out of bubblegum...

Fwiw, I'm in the que to log in to "Whitebeam Run," PVE, East Coast server. I learned from my LOTRO and AoC days to stick with servers that I can remember how to spell easily. And, yeah, it had the shortest wait.

So many promising fixes/changes in the Build Notes. I can't see any way to copy/paste them. Smuggler has a few interesting changes, and supposedly now you won't be able to use anything as cover that might get you stuck there (hallelujah!), and its sound FX has been finalized. A few classes seem to have new skills altogether -- I imagine a print strategy guide won't be worth much on this.

I and others had suggested they consider adding more info to the "Advanced Class selection screen," and it sounds like they did, including ability to preview skill trees there and a bag with some appropriate goodies once you choose.

I don't want to be cynical or skeptical or jaded, but all my previous attempts to get some sort of GT guild going in other mmorpgs have led nowhere. We haven't played together, we've barely said a word in guild chat, etc. At best, maybe we had some "guild stash" we could throw crap loot into.

I like the idea of it, and I keep trying to get the ball rolling, but I think basically everyone's very busy, everyone plays lots of games not just one MMO, we all live in different time zones, have different work skeds etc., and maybe it's unrealistic for me to think we're gonna have some big happy SWTOR guild that regularly runs Flashpoints and crafts stuff for each other and sings Kumbayee around a fire when we're not cavorting with members of all the great big guilds we've allied with.

So, realistically, I wanna try to get this little Heroes guild into early access but I harbor no illusions it'll go anywhere. Maybe we'll dissolve it once the game launches, for all I know. Maybe the members will stage a palace coup and call SWTOR Tech Support to have me "erased" as guild leader. That's fine. Lets just get one or two or however many guilds into the early access and see where it goes. Maybe they'll go nowhere. Maybe they'll snowball into something awesome. Lets just give ourselves the chance/chances to see.

Well, I have joined forum guilds specifically for some of these reasons... I need a casual guild as my schedule doesn't allow me to be very active.. (Plus I have gaming ADD...)So a casual, no pressure, guild is for me!

I had fun with the Bounty Hunter for 4 levels and then started getting stuck everywhere in Hutta -- not on things, just walking down a path, or through an empty field. The /stuck command just got me back to the same place, where I'd get stuck again. And then I started getting stuck just about everywhere. I did submit a bug report. Maybe it was just severe lag - people around me seemed to move fine.

I tried creating a Smuggler and going back in but the game got stuck about half way through the initial loading process forever and I just turned it off via task manager. "Hey, it's a beta." I know.

They seem to have done some fine turning of cutscene animations, and those look a bit less "puppet like" to me now. They also seemed to have spiffed up the taxi speeders a bit. The turns seem smoother and I didn't get motion sickness as I was in a prior weekend test.

Crap. I got in no problem, but it doesn't look my computer could handle the graphics. My computer is old and not optimized for gaming, but it was able to handle rift and dc universe pretty well. Unfortunately this was borderline unplayable. I'll look into upgrading my computer, but unless I can do it for really cheap I'll have to pass.

After spending a lot of time trying to figure out what I would need to update my computer, I think it boiled down to just needing a new video card. So I ran out to Best Buy, picked up a new one, and got it installed. This queue screen is gorgeous.

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I'm a little irritated...the queue screen lists all servers as having a queue time of 10secs to 2 mins...but almost everyone I've tried puts me in queue around 800-1000 and that's really close to 20-30 minutes. Found one that said 10 secs and I was only 200 and that was 10 minutes ago.

I am getting excellent latency times when I do connect. Yesterday I was averaging around 42ms and never hit any of the lag spikes.

I'm a little torn on the game itself. I like parts of it but the actually cartoony graphics are throwing me off a little. The pre-game cut scenes and movies are beyond fantastic though. I can get used to the graphics but it was really not what I was expecting at all.

The early parts of the game just scream MMO from 2-3 years ago though. From the UI to the limited characters/races available to the really kinda bad character customization I would not rate my first impression as this being a AAA MMO especially from Bioware/EA. It's nice and it works but again not what I was expecting especially given the development time.

Want to add: the music and sound effects are spot on perfect. Love them.

More second impressions. Really like the visual indication of better loot. Also like the light/dark indications in chat. Auto loot and auto area loot are nice. Game itself runs great. Smooth loading and no lag or fps issues even with most everything turned to max. No problems with lag and the queues are gone compared to earlier. Still averaging under 50ms which means the servers are pretty close to me (in WoW I average around 50 when the servers are in New York).

Bounty hunter area really bugged compared to some of the others I've played. Blasters with no visual blaster, people getting stuck, dead guys blinking and lips not moving. Noticeable but nothing major. A few cookie crumb quests would really help out too (trainer after leveling, advanced trainers, etc).

This is not a WoW killer though regardless of what anyone else says. I can see it having a million plus subs even after the first month but this is only going to put a dent in WoW at best. Still disappointed in the extreme price of the CE. I will probably keep my pre-order though of the middle option (digital plus or whatever it was) though I considered cancelling it at first. I see refinements but pretty much nothing ground breaking or even risky which is too bad because it will have the audience where it could have made a difference.

Well I'm still having trouble running the game, and I'm wondering if it is due to lag instead of my computer since I should meet their requirements now to play the game. Unfortunately, it's borderline unplayable. Hit one of the WASD keys to move, and there's a significant delay before my character actually does anything. I don't need it to look pretty, but I want it to at least be somewhat smooth.

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Well, I have joined forum guilds specifically for some of these reasons... I need a casual guild as my schedule doesn't allow me to be very active.. (Plus I have gaming ADD...)So a casual, no pressure, guild is for me!

Accepted your application (duh; it's not like I'm actually evaluating them!) for the Gaming Trend Villains. We only need two more people to pre-order and join us before this Friday (December 2) to count as an official guild for import.

Well I'm still having trouble running the game, and I'm wondering if it is due to lag instead of my computer since I should meet their requirements now to play the game. Unfortunately, it's borderline unplayable. Hit one of the WASD keys to move, and there's a significant delay before my character actually does anything. I don't need it to look pretty, but I want it to at least be somewhat smooth.

What are your specs? I'm playing on a pretty low-end machine this weekend and the performance is okay. Not great, but playable.

It's not built or optimized to be a gaming machine, but was able to run games like Civ V, Rift, DC Universe before I added the video card today (albeit poorly). These games run much better with the new video card, but SWTOR was still choppy. I'm sure my processor needs to be upgraded, but I don't necessarily have the cash right now to immediately upgrade that, and based on the minimum requirements for SWTOR I thought I could get away with just upgrading my video card.

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I cant get past the prologue's final cutscenes it seems. On both my Sith Inquisitor and my Jedi Sentinel, I come to the final quest, on Sith where I have to talk to my new master, and on Jedi where I have to talk to a hologram of Rajivari and neither cutscene does anything beyond speaking the first two lines of their dialogue.

I havent seen this anywhere else, and no-one seems to have the same issue.

Both my chars are lvl 9, is that it? Do I have to be lvl 10 or something??

I've tried redownloading the launcher, switching to windowed mode and all sorts of things. Other cutscenes works fine

Well I'm still having trouble running the game, and I'm wondering if it is due to lag instead of my computer since I should meet their requirements now to play the game. Unfortunately, it's borderline unplayable. Hit one of the WASD keys to move, and there's a significant delay before my character actually does anything. I don't need it to look pretty, but I want it to at least be somewhat smooth.

What are your specs? I'm playing on a pretty low-end machine this weekend and the performance is okay. Not great, but playable.

My modest, aging quad core and HD5670 card ran really well with most settings up (no AA, not real clear on if the beta build supports that at all since it's not available in video options) most of this weekend once I switched to a different PVE East Coast server. I'll post a video compilation later to show that.

Razgon, I did sometimes have issues with cutscenes sort of "lingering" on the final closeup of the character talking. In a couple cases I gave up and exited the game. In most cases, if I gave it maybe 15-20 seconds, the cutscene would finally complete and move on. I'm convinced it's some sort of lag issue. I'm sorry I don't have a solution per se.

Here's a little spasm of screenshots -- after a few levels on the Bounty Hunter on that problematic other East Coast pve server, I took a smuggler again all the way to L13 by the wee hours this morning:

Although I still think it's not quite intuitive enough to know that you get an advanced class choice at L10 and you have to do a simple "go visit so and so" quest from a fairly nondescript NPC quest giver (in Smuggler's case, not too far from Corsucant spaceport) -- I DO like the revamped Advanced Class choice "menu" at the advanced class trainer. Much more informative and direct. Choosing "inspect" lets you see the entire skill tree of that choice, so you can review everything before you make your decision.

I went with Gunslinger this time. Most of the stuff here is not "showstopper" abilities, as much as improving lower end attacks, making you more efficient, giving you some interesting defense bonuses etc. There's one early one that gives you a brief def. buff against ranged attacks for a few seconds after you leave cover. I probably played 12 hours or something as Smuggler yesterday and I never got tired of the mechanic, although I felt the need to occasionally run in and dirty kick or blaster-whip -- just for variety.

With me dual blasters finally. Most attack skills will work with duals, and then there's a few later unique to it.

Smuggler's medium armor eventually diverges and you don't have everyone wearing brown leather.

I noticed that -- it's some weird lighting effect in certain environments. If you wanna flashback to Han Solo wearing those "welding goggles" while working on the Millenium Falcon in TESB, that works for me. I got to L15, but really needed a break. Was sooooo glad to get sprint (an "always on" toggle that works whenever you're not in combat) at L14.

And hey: CHECK YOUR MAIL! They regularly have NPCs (quest-givers you've done things for, usually) in-game e-mail you a message -- often to say thanks for doing something, and sometimes it'll include credits, a commendation or another reward of some sort. I was so pleasantly surprised the first time I saw that, and then it happens regularly -- certainly not to the extent it's a nuisance, but it's fun and a reason to check mail regularly in the game.

Letting companion(s) handle the crafting and non-combat stuff of all sorts (investigating, treasure hunting, scavenging, etc.) seems ingenious to me now that I've actually used it. I liked accomplishing stuff crafting I just never had much fun sitting at a crafting table and banging out a bunch of crap to reach the point of making something useful. Much happier letting a companion tackle that stuff while I do something else.

I was told scavenging and investigating went pretty well with weapons crafting and so far that seems the case.

It doesn't take long. Most "crew missions" seem to be maybe 3 to 6 minutes, and most items a crew member can craft in a minute or so. It's fun to like, set something, go use the restroom or do an errand in the real world and *boom* it's done when you get back.

I'm sure somebody already mentioned it here but once you have a ship, the crew can use materials store there (rather than just your personal inventory). They can also go sell "grey loot."

I do wish they'd make these various windows re-positionable; in part because on a 23" wide screen or larger, it's just hard to get your eyes to shift between the windows.

I've been experiencing the weirdest audio bug around players with companions. I can hear their companions talk from all the way across a zone, as if they were shouting in my ear. It's actually startled me a few times until I figured out wth was happening. It's so much louder than the rest of the game sounds and music, that I'm guessing it has to be a bug.

-Maybe my google-fu is failing me but at what levels do you get your companions? I know you get your first at level 7-8 and get you droid at 15-16 when you get your ship, but what levels do you acquire the rest?

-Maybe my google-fu is failing me but at what levels do you get your companions? I know you get your first at level 7-8 and get you droid at 15-16 when you get your ship, but what levels do you acquire the rest?

Since I haven't made it farther than 16, I can't help you there. I did see someone post on one forum or another that you tend to meet them a while before they actually "enlist" with you, so I've been playing a "who-seems-important-or-cool?" game with everyone I meet...

EDIT> A semi-related point to that one, which I've been intending to post about for a while: I'm enjoying the fact that the game progresses a little more slowly than the "streamlined" early areas of modern WOW or LOTRO. I know SWTOR will head that way eventually (it's a functional necessity for recruiting new players over time and getting them up to playing with the veterans in a reasonable timeframe) but, for now, I'm enjoying the fact that you don't get a single companion until hours in, that you don't get any real class- or role-defining skills until Level 14, that getting your spaceship is a matter of probably 20+ hours of play from character creation (not a quick evening of questing), etc.

I've been experiencing the weirdest audio bug around players with companions. I can hear their companions talk from all the way across a zone, as if they were shouting in my ear. It's actually startled me a few times until I figured out wth was happening. It's so much louder than the rest of the game sounds and music, that I'm guessing it has to be a bug.

I keep hearing what sounds like Jabba the Hutt barking in my ear in certain zones. I think maybe my companion's voice is getting mistakenly replaced with some NPC's at an extra loud volume. May want to report that as a bug to make sure Bioware's aware of it, though it's a rather difficult bug to explain. [Actually, in the "system actions text," I can see it's a character that sounds like a Hutt; very strange]

I definitely had more lag issues today (I guess a given with the influx of stress testers round 3). Sometimes everything in the game would stop moving, and then the game would frantically speed up for a few seconds to try to catch up.

Launching/Loading Issues Queue wait times displayed on the Server Select Menu may appear to be significantly longer than the actual wait time.

The number of characters listed on the Server Select Menu may not reflect the number that are playable on a server.

On the Server Select Menu, server names may vanish if the list is scrolled.

Workaround: Click on a column name to re-sort the list of servers.

The process 'launcher.exe' can leave a ghost process in the task manager, and players are unable to open the launcher with it running.

Solution: If you double-click on the launcher icon and nothing happens, go to your Task Manager (press Ctrl+Shift+Del, then start Task Manager), click the 'Processes' tab, look for 'launcher.exe' and click 'End Process' if it is present.

Gameplay Issues Players may not always be able to loot. This may occur after a recent player death, or during gathering. Workaround: Press X twice to have the character sit and then stand up, then try to loot again.

A large change to the items system may have invalidated some character's items from the previous build. Pre-existing characters will gain no benefit from wearing these items.

Workaround: If you are playing on a pre-existing character, unequip all gear currently being worn and attempt to re-equip it. For any gear that cannot be re-equipped, you may have to purchase or loot additional gear.

Any taxis other than the cab / speeder bike style do not resummon companions after the player reaches their destination.

Workaround: Upon reaching your destination, resummon your companion by right-clicking on their portrait window at the bottom left. [You can also LEFT-click the teeny weeny "stick figure head" icon in the lower left corner to resummon-bj]

The Galactic Trade Network does not properly refund bids for closed auctions.

When dueling with the opposite faction, the losing player can continue to be attacked by the winner of the duel without consequence. This does not have any effect on gameplay out of the duel and is only applicable between the two players dueling each other.

When using the Round Robin loot ruleset, if another group member attempts to loot an item that is assigned to you, neither player may receive the item(s).

The Operation 'Karagga's Palace' is temporarily unavailable for play.

User Interface Issues Character and companion portraits (AKA 'paper dolls') may not always be visible.

Workaround: This issue is related to your Shader Complexity setting being set to 'Low'. Press 'Escape' and click 'Preferences'. Under 'Graphics' in the 'Advanced' section, check 'Shader Complexity'. If it is set to 'Low', set it to 'High' and click 'Apply'. You may need to refresh your UI by pressing Ctrl + U, waiting a few seconds and then pressing Ctrl + U again to see your character/companion portraits again.

Map icons can sometimes become offset and overlapped. Refreshing the user interface (by pressing Ctrl + U twice) will usually not resolve the issue.

Workaround: Logging out of the affected character and logging back may resolve the issue. If logging out does not work, quit the game and relaunch the client.

Using Reverse Engineering on a stack of items will reverse engineer the entire stack.

Workaround: Remember to split stacks of items before you Reverse Engineer, to make sure that you only change the number you want.

After refreshing the UI, the 'Crew Window' button may disappear from the top toolbar.

Workaround: Completely restarting the game should fix this issue. You may still open the crew skills window by pressing 'N'.

You may notice a single orange pixel on the left hand side of your screen while playing The Old Republic. Your monitor is not broken. This is a graphical error that will be removed in a future release.

Tooltips for items in the Repair tab have some values listed as 'Null'.

The Friends list does not always update online status dynamically.

Engine trails for player spaceships are not visible in Space Combat.

Viewing another player’s Crew Skill list will incorrectly display both your schematics and the other player’s.

When sending your currently active Companion Character on a mission, their name in the confirmation message can be replaced by the time the mission will take to complete. (For example, sending a companion on a one-minute mission would display a confirmation message of "60 is currently deployed on a crew skill task.") This does not affect the mission's completion.

Legacy titles do not display properly when players first enter a zone.

Defeated enemies will sometimes remain standing and may not display loot indicators when loot is available.

Using crafting recipes can cause them to disappear from the Crew Skills window.

Hardware/Compatability Issues

ATI video cards may experience some graphical inconsistencies such as blank icons, blank character portraits, or flickering shadows. These may supercede the other issues listed here. [This might also explain my occasional "not wearing pants!" character models with certain paints not being visible in-game-bj]

Non-IssuesSome aspects of The Old Republic are often questioned but are in fact 'working as intended'. This section includes details of those.

Under Graphics preferences, the Anti-aliasing option is not yet functional.

The Combat Log is disabled.

Some chairs and benches cannot be interacted with.

In multiplayer conversation, rolls are intended to be over 100 at times. This allows players to 'crit' on a roll!